A tiny little blog, in a tiny little house, in a big city filled with the things that make me happy: dancing, knitting, baking, friends, family.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Behind schedule a little –

I have a couple of things to post about today, mostly because I'm a bit behind in the posting.As a general note though, things are good.Bean keeps kicking me regularly and I'm getting bigger and bigger so it seems like things are great.I can feel that the next few weeks are going to be very busy though.So, I'm going to have to try to steal some moments of rest wherever I can.For now though, here's what has been going on:

Meredith and her partner at Leisure Projects were commissioned to curate an exhibit and dinner at the Drake through the Alphabet City organization.Alphabet City organizes an annual multidisciplinary festival that addresses one topic of global/urban concern (more on Alphabet City here).This year's topic was 'Food'.It's a bit of a challenge for me to describe what she was asked to do exactly, but it essentially boiled down to Meredith coordinating a dinner with the chef at The Drake that is a throw-back to the official dinners of past and in particular to the Royal tours of the 1950's, including princess Elizabeth's visit in 1951, the visit of Princess Margaret as well as Queen Elizabeth's (the Queen Mother) visit in 1959.The bottom line for me was that I got to go to this very elegant event, enjoy a superb meal and visit a smidge with Mer.The RCMP had representatives at the door, guests were piped in by a bagpiper, we received handmade (by Leisure Projects) corsages for the evening, and we enjoyed a truly fabulous quartet.Rob was sick, so I took Caroline with me as my guest for the evening.I ate so much food that I could hardly sleep from the discomfort.

Rob's Birthday

Was fairly uneventful - the poor fellow. His birthday was Sunday and so we went out for dinner and I made him a Boston Cream Pie Birthday Cake (using a modified version of this recipe). I shopped for his gift on Saturday while he moved the concrete and construction waste from our house out to the big bin in our back yard. I should mention that he did all of that while he was suffering from a cold which meant coughing, sneezing, fever, while hauling many many pounds of concrete into a big metal bin! Since he worked so hard, I gave him his birthday present on Saturday night: a thermal travel mug for work and road trips and Bioshock. On Sunday Rob cleaned up the last of the construction waste and tried to recover from his cold while I went to Mac's field lacrosse game in Orangeville.

Thanksgiving

Rob and I didn't get to spend much time with our family this Thanksgiving but we did go to my aunt and uncle's house for dinner on Monday. It was Rob's first turkey in quite a long time and I think he enjoyed it. The food was really delicious. Everyone who contributed did an excellent job - nothing fancy, just tasty. Everyone was happy to see me all nice and round and both Mac and my mum got a chance to feel Bean kicking around. Christian called and everyone got a chance to talk to him for a bit too. Rob's parents and sister also called us for Rob's birthday and of course we called his dad on Dad's birthday (they are only one day apart). All in all, a really nice day.

I did hear, however, that my aunt sort of collapsed after we left her place. She is getting a bit older now and I think all the work exhausted her. She was also a bit dehydrated. It was scary for those who were there since about 25 years ago, she collapsed during a Thanksgiving dinner (which is always at her house) the cause of which was a stroke. We're pretty sure that she's ok now though. However, I think next year there's going to be a new Thanksgiving tradition in our family - somebody else hosts (maybe me?)!Happy Anniversary!

To Us! And to Gina and Kendrick I hear as well. It was Rob's and my 3rd anniversary this past Tuesday. We haven't done much in the way of celebrating yet. It really is a busy time right now. We don't normally do too much anyway - just try to spend some time together that's a little 'extra'. Our trip to Rochester counts but we are still planning on an evening out this coming weekend. Now that Rob has given up vegetarianism I thought it would be fun for us to go out to eat cataplana. We honeymooned in Portugal and the cataplana nearly did Rob in. He wanted to try it very very badly and was quite disappointed that he'd given up the opportunity for his vegetarian lifestyle. Now that he's freed himself from the shackles, it seemed like the perfect time to reminisce about our wedding and our honeymoon and to gorge ourselves on seafood! Conveniently, there is this highly recommended Portuguese restaurant right in downtown Toronto.

House Update

No, not an update on "House"... an update on our house (I'm funny today, non?). There is a pit in our living room. There is water running from outside one wall, through the pit, to the outside through a different wall in our living room. The construction waste is gone. We've had a couple of contractors come and look at "the problem". So far, no one is available to actually fix it but they all agree that while it's not a huge it's a big enough job that concrete will be poured. Any more detail than that will require it's own post.

Bean Update

No, not an update on beans, an update on our Bean (hilarious, yes?). I had another of the monthly midwife appointments yesterday. As I expected, everything is great. Current stats are:My blood pressure - 100/58Sugars - negative; Protein - negativeFundal height 24 cm (exactly right for 24 weeks pregnant. Karen, contrast how you looked with how I looked at 24 cm, eh? Crazy!)Bean's heartrate - 150 bpm

I have started to get a bit of swelling in my feet and ankles and some calf cramping at night so we talked about that (it's normal and there's no great solution). We also talked about a few other things that, frankly, I wish I didn't know about, am sure you don't want to know about, and therefore I won't mention here. Let's just say though, that I was put somewhat at ease by the answers to my questions. On a different topic, the midwife did explain that since Bean has enough room to move around still (current estimated length is 12 inches and weight is around 1.5 lbs) that my belly shape might change noticeably. For example, sometimes I look like I'm carrying 'high' and breathing is difficult from pressure on my diaphragm while other times I look like I'm carrying 'low' and there is pressure on my bladder. This stuff is all dependent on whether Bean's stretched out, head-up, head-down, etc.. I thought that was pretty neato. I also learned that the pulse I can feel on my stomach often is actually the pulse of blood in the placenta. When I'm sitting still and if I apply even a bit of pressure on my belly, I can feel the pulse there as strongly or more so as if I'd checked the pulse in my jugular.

I've also recently purchased a pregnancy wedge to keep me sleeping on my side at night. It's reasonably annoying right now but I suspect I'll get used to it.

Well, I think that's all I've got for now. I realize that I haven't posted my weekly menu in a while. We were doing fine last week - I just forgot to post. This week has been almost entirely leftovers from a delicious Thanksgiving dinner. I'll post again starting next week.

It's funny. My reaction to Gina's anniversary was, "It's only been a year?" and to yours it's, "It's been three years already?" Funny how time is. When I think of Gina's, I'm thinking back to the wedding. When I think of yours, I think about how long you've been married. pretty much the same thing but when I think back to your wedding, I do think, "Has it only been three years?"